Eurovision Song Contest 1963
|winner = "Dansevise" by Grethe & Jørgen Ingmann|pre = 1962|nex = 1964|theme = }}The Eurovision Song Contest 1963 was the eighth annual Eurovision Song Contest, held in London, United Kingdom, after the British broadcaster BBC stepped in to organise the event. France had won the 1962 edition with the right to host this following one but were unable to, due to financial shortcomings. No country debuted, returned or withdrew. It was won by Denmark with the song "Dansevise", performed by husband and wife duo Grethe & Jørgen Ingmann, giving the country its first victory. Four countries got nul points, with Finland, Norway and Sweden failing to score any points for the first time and The Netherlands for the second time, becoming the first country to go two years in a row without scoring a single point. Location The BBC was willing to host the contest instead of the previous year's winner France, as was the case in 1960, 1972 and 1974 with previous winning broadcasters that could not afford to organise a contest. The host venue was the BBC Television Centre, White City, London, which opened in 1960. It is one of the most readily recognisable facilities of its type having appeared as the backdrop for many BBC programmes. It remained to be one of the largest such facilities in the world until it closed in March 2013. Voting controversy One controversy this year was during the voting. When it was Norway's turn to announce their votes, the spokesman in Oslo did not use the correct procedure in that the song number, followed by the name of the country, should have been announced before awarding the points. Katie Boyle asked Norway to repeat their results, but the Norwegian spokesman asked Katie to return to them after all the other results were in. When Katie went back to Norway again the votes had mysteriously altered, thus changing the outcome of the contest and giving the victory to Norway's neighbours Denmark at Switzerland's expense. In fact, the Norwegian spokesman had not given the correct votes on the first occasion. Monaco was also asked to do their voting a second time as initially Monaco give one point to both the United Kingdom and Luxembourg. However, when Katie Boyle went back to Monaco to receive the votes again Monaco's one vote to Luxembourg was efficiently discarded (although this did not have any effect on the positions of the countries). It has also been speculated as to whether the juries were indeed on the end of a telephone line or in the actual studio given how clearly their voices could be heard as opposed to sounding as though they were being redirected through a telephone line. Participants Returning artists Results Scoreboard International broadcasts and voting The table below shows the order in which votes were cast during the 1963 contest along with the spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for their respective country. Each national broadcaster also sent a commentator to the contest, in order to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language. Details of the commentators and the broadcasting station for which they represented are also included in the table below. Voting and spokespersons These are the countries and spokespersons who announced their points 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 points to other countries. # - Nicholas Parsons # - Pim Jacobs # - Werner Veigel # - Emil Kollpacher # - Roald Øyen # - Enzo Tortora # - Poppe Berg # - TBC # - Miloje Orlović # - Alexandre Burger # - Armand Lanoux # - Julio Rico # - Edvard Matz # - Ward Bogaert # - TBC # - TBC Commentators * - Hanns Joachim Friedrichs (ORF) * - Herman Verelst & Denise Maes (BRT); Pierre Delhasse (RTB) * - Ole Mortensen (DR TV) * - Aarno Walli (Suomen Televisio) * - Pierre Tchernia (RTF) * - Hanns Joachim Friedrichs (ARD Deutsches Fernsehen) * - Renato Tagliani (Programma Nazionale) * - Pierre Tchernia (Télé-Luxembourg) * - Pierre Tchernia (Télé Monte Carlo) * - Willem Duys (NTS) * - Øivind Johnsen (NRK and NRK P1) * - Federico Gallo (TVE) * - Jörgen Cederberg (Sveriges Radio-TV and SR P1) * - Theodor Haller (TV DRS); Georges Hardy (TSR); Renato Tagliani (TSI) * - David Jacobs (BBC TV); Michael Aspel (BBC Light Programme) * - Ljubomir Vukadinović (Televizija Beograd); Gordana Bonetti (Televizija Zagreb); Tomaž Terček (Televizija Ljubljana) External links * Official website Category:Eurovision Song Contests Category:Eurovision Song Contest 1963 Category:Contests in United Kingdom